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Isxuor
General information Isxuor is a Romance language spoken in the country of Isora, a region locked between surrounding nations Frón̂caia and Estella to the west and east and the Mer Imisterrane to the south. It is descended from Lasxina, although it was very noticeably been influenced by Frón̂cai and Estellienno. The language is very verb-centric and will prefer to forgo the subject if possible. Phonology Alphabet The alphabet of Isorian is similar to the Latin alphabet. It follows as such: Consonants To note: *The consonant cluster gn represents the sound /ŋn/ —for instance, ‹regna› "ruler" would in IPA be /ɾeŋnɑː/. *The consonant cluster sx represents a stressed /ɕ/—cf. ‹nisx› "night" /niɕː/ and ‹lux› /luɕ/. *The consonant q'' always appears followed by a ''u, and together they represent the sound /kw/—for instance, ‹quor› "who?" would be /kwoːɾ/. *The letter n'' represents three possible phonemes depending on its location: before ''x and sx (/ɕ/ and /ɕː/), it takes on the value /ɲ/; before c'', ''g and h'' (/k/, /g/ and /h/), it takes on the sound /ŋ/; and in all other places, it takes on the values of /n/. *''n̂ and m̂ are special versions of the nasal consonants n'' and ''m that both signify a nasalisation of the preceding vowel: / ˜/ (cf. ‹siéñ›, /si 'ã/). However, when followed by a vowel, usually the vowel that begins the next word, n̂ is pronounced as n'' and ''m̂ as m''; e.g., ‹sti sién̂ arvea› "they are trees": /sti si.'a nɑɾ.veː.ɑ/ *Other consonants all denote the same sounds as shown in the table above and will not take on any other sounds, even in clusters of consonants. Vowels To note: *Vowel letters can represent either a short or a long vowel sound. The distinction is marked in speech but not in writing, and so the vowel lengths per word are best learnt by heart. *All vowels do take the sounds as shown above, and only the sounds shown above, and the specific combinations in which they take different sounds—such as ''áe and áu—are also shown above. **The one exception is e'', which can take either /ɛ/ or /e/ depending on ease of speech, but /ɛ/ is always short; /ɛː/ does not exist in Isxuor. *The combinations ''áe, áu and œ̀ only appear if the first vowel of a word would be /a/, /ɒ/ and /ə/ respectively. At all other instances of those sounds are represented by é'', ''ó and è'' respectively. Cf. ‹áurón̂› "they have" /ɒ 'ɾɒ̃/, where both ''áu and ó'' represent /ɒ/, but their locations determine which form is used. Phonotactics Isorian takes any small cluster of consonants and vowels as a syllable, the smallest possible syllable being (V) or (C–V). For instance. ‹o› "''at" forms a syllable, being a whole word in and of itself; ‹zu› "you" is also a whole syllable and a word, with a (C–V) breakdown. Typically, syllables take on the form (C–L–V–C), where *'C' denotes any consonant; *'L' denotes the liquid consonants r'' and ''l; *'V' denotes a short or long vowel, or a cluster of two vowel sounds (a diphthong); and *'brackets' denote that the contents are optional to the syllable. Note that when multiple long vowels are in succession, all the vowels after the first form independent syllables. e.g., ‹haoes› "chaos", /ˌhɑː ˈoː ɛs/ Syllables are classified this way: *'Short Syllables' are composed of either a single vowel (V), or a single (C–V) cluster, both cases in which the vowel V is a short vowel sound. *'Medium Syllables' are clusters of multiple consonants with a single short vowel sound: (C–V–C) is a common medium syllable. *All other syllables are considered Long Syllables: to wit, ones with multiple vowels or long vowels. To take more complex example, ‹corafractitau›, "heartbreak", can be broken into syllables as such, with the lengths of the syllables also given. Agreement Verbs Like most of its sister languages, Isorian is quite heavily verb-centric and ideas can, most of the time, be conveyed in sentences that comprise solely of one verb and its modifying adverbs. This is expressed moreso in Isorian than its sister languages in that Isorian has developed a more complex (although slightly more compact) system of verbs and verb functions. Verb infinitives always end in ''-re'', and the letter right before this syllable is used as a basis for classification of verbs. As such there are five conjugations of verbs, excluding exceptions, and they are as follows: The conjugations also match up to some extent, and the major differences are found only in how the vowels interact with other vowels and consonants. Timeframe and Aspect One can consider there to be three basic timeframes: the past (sta passata), the present (sto presónni) and the future (sta fuitura). This is in accordance with many other languages that create similar distinctions in time. There are again, like most other languages, a two-fold distinction in aspect: the aorist (sta bassuisca "the basic") and the perfective (sta parfacta). Tenses Together, the timeframes and aspects contribute to six total tenses: *'Simple Present' (Sto Presónni Bassuisco) **This tense denotes actions, simple and continuous, as well as habits: e.g., ‹amar› ("I love", "I do love", "I am loving"); ‹derarón̂› ("they give", "they do give", "they are giving"); yttè ("you (pl.) go", "you (pl.) do go", "you (pl.) are going"). *'Simple Past' (Sta Passata Bassuisca) **This denotes basic past actions and habits of the past: ‹› *'Simple Future' (Sta Fuitura Bassuisca) **This tense is used when describing intended future actions, and functions as an optative tense of sorts: ‹seri› ("I shall be", "I plan on being", "I would be"); ‹ypnerai› ("he/she/it shall sleep", "he/she/it plans on sleeping", "he/she/it would sleep"). *'Present Perfect' (Sto Presónni Parfacto) **When an action is being described that has just reached completed or currently being completed, this tense is used: ‹comtebux› ("you (sing.) have eaten", "you (sing.) just ate"); ‹{nœ̀i} facore› ("we have done/finished/made", "we just did/finished/made"). *'Pluperfect' (Sta Pius-qua-Parfacta or Sta Passata Parfacta) **This tense either can denote an action that was finished before the current period of time, or it can denote as well an anterior action: ‹fuhibe› ("he/she/it had flown"); ‹avora di piegare, comptebi o restoranzui› ("before—to return—(I) eat —at restaurant" = "before returning, I ate/had eaten at the restaurant"). *'Future Perfect' (Sta Fuitura Parfacta) **This tense regularly denotes a certainty in the future, an action one knows will get completed. It can also be used in a commissive sense (to make a promise or a threat), in the sense of "I will have ____ done": ‹buveri› ("I will drink", "I will have drunk"); ‹vieneroi› ("I will come", "I will have come"). Moods Just as important to speech as tense-forms are the various moods, which allow expression of attitudes, such as commands and desires. While there are several moods that can be expressed by means of auxiliary verbs such as ‹valore› ("to want") and ‹povore› ("to be able"), there are two moods expressed in the form of verbal inflections: the conditionalubjunctive mood and the imperative/volitional mood. *'Conditional' (Sta Condisonna or Sta Suviegniteve "the subjunctive") **This mood operates irreally: meaning that it indicates emotions or opinions or possibilities moreso than hard facts. This mood is also used to indicate conditionals: what could have happened, as opposed to what exactly happened: *'Imperative' (Sta Imperisteve) **This mood is can actually be split into two moods. ***If the verb is in the second or third person and in the imperative mood, then it signifies a command made to the subject, telling them to execute the action. ***If however the verb is in the first person and imperative mood, then it signifies volition, in the sense of "let me ____!" or "let us ____!": ‹cantomè!› ("let us sing!"); ‹eo› ("let me go"). Note that the sense of "let me" isn't asking for permission or commanding someone to let one do something; it is in the sense of talking to oneself, and making plans. Nouns Having lost several nuances in how nouns are declined as it evolved from its parent language Lasxina, Isxuor has developed its own set of noun declensions, much as it has developed conjugations for verbs. It does retain noun cases; however, the dative case of Lasxina has been deprecated, and the vocative case eliminated altogether. As such, the only remaining cases are the nominative (subject), accusative (object), ablative (adverbial/prepositional) and genitive (possessive). Again, nouns are declines based on the last letter of the bare root: The labels "primary" and "secondary" for each of the declensions of each gender really serve little more than denoted commonness of the nouns—primary declensions are the more common bare roots and secondary declensions are less common bare roots. However, the secondary declensions are especially common when one desires to turn adjectives into nouns. Of course, the actual declensions are as follows: Something important to notice is how the consonant–ending nouns undergo stress when inflected, in this case manifesting as the duplication of the final consonant. Different consonants undergo different types of stress, and final-consonant clusters undergo stress as if they were a single consonant. As such when dealing with such nouns, it is good to learn both the nominative singular and one other inflected form—usually the genitive singular—in order to have a fingertip feel of how the noun is declined. There is a general rule, however: *''x'' and sx → cs *''r'' → rr, (in rare cases) tr *''m'' → mp *''nt'' → nd *''ns'' → nz *''t'' → ss *''b'' → pp *''g'' → cc *''d'' → tt *Other consonants undergo duplication: e.g., l'' → ''ll; n'' → ''nn; p'' → ''pp Adjectives Adjectives are declined identically to nouns, except they're limited to the primary declensions only—e.g., "good child" can be translated as such: As shown, the adjective bona ''"''good" takes on different endings per gender depending on the modified word. Note, however, that bona will never take on the secondary forms *''bon'', *''boni'' or *''bonu''. The definite articles ‹sta› "the", "that" and ‹''la''› "the", "this" both are declined and treated as adjectives. As such, ‹sta› can also form masculine and feminine forms ‹''sto''› and ‹''ste''› respectively; ‹''la''› likewise will also form ‹''lo''› and ‹''le''›. To take the example of ‹bone file› "good girl", the pair are declined as such: Adjectives always match every aspect of the noun they modify. If one wanted to say "the good girl's book", one would say stessè bonessè filessè (sto) livro. Note that the adjectival definite article is optional when the noun it might modify is modified in another way; one might translate stessè bonessè filessè sto livro as "the book of the good girl" as well, if one cared to keep word-for-word consistency between Isxuor and English. To further stress the fact that adjectives are only ever declined in the primary forms, the example of ‹inferanzo soli› "shining sun" is taken: Vocabulary Example text Category:Languages